You may have seen advertisements about eating certain
foods to change the pH of your blood so that you can
prevent cancer, become more youthful, have more energy,
or prevent a variety of other diseases. The pH of any
solution can range in number from 0-14. Seven is
considered a neutral solution. Above 7 is more alkaline
and below 7 is more acidic. The fact is our blood pH
remains fairly constant and we cannot change it by what
we eat.

The type of diet some of these advertisements refer
to is the Alkaline Ash diet. This diet promotes
consumption of fruit, vegetables and milk with only
minor amounts of meat, fish, eggs, and grains. The
thought is that if you eat these foods, your body will
benefit by becoming more alkaline. These foods do leave
by-products that make the urine more alkaline. But urine
is not blood. Urine is contained in the bladder and then
excreted.

Supporters of this diet believe that it can prevent
cancer because some studies have shown that in a test
tube, cancer cells grow faster in an acidic environment.
In similar tests, chemotherapy drugs have worked more
effectively if the area around the tumor was more
alkaline. These are only test tube studies and have not
been tested in the human body. According to Dr. Gabe
Mirkin in an article on
www.quackwatch.org,
studies show that cancer cells cannot survive in an
alkaline environment but neither can any of the other
cells in your body.

The normal pH of the body is 7.35 to 7.45. If
something happens to change this, the body immediately
works to get the pH back to this range. There are
certain situations when the pH of the body changes
slightly. For example, when lactic acid is produced
(during or after a hard workout) or when the kidneys are
not functioning properly. In the case of the workout,
the body adjusts in different ways to get the pH back to
normal. In the case of kidneys not working properly,
dialysis is needed to help maintain the pH of the blood.
Dr Mirkin states that anything that changes the pH of
your body can make you very sick and death could result.

Another thing to note is that the pH of the blood
will not be the same as the pH of the urine or saliva.
Don’t believe that you can test either the urine or
saliva and know the pH of your blood. The only way to
test the pH of the blood is to actually test the blood.

The American Cancer Society does recommend a diet of
mostly plant foods with limited saturated fat and added
sugars. The reason plant-based foods help reduce the
risk of cancer is because of the nutrients the plant
contains, not because they can change the pH of your
blood.